The Complexity of Coexistence. Civilians and Former Combatants in Post-war Sierra Leone

Résumé/Abstract

[En] Since the end of the civil war in 2002,
Sierra Leoneans have experienced a relatively stable peace and it can be
considered common knowledge that civilians and former combatants are living in
coexistence. During my fieldwork in the country I was however surprised just
how positively some people spoke about the post-conflict situation. «We have
long forgotten about the war», some told me ; others said
they were asked to ‘forgive and forget’ and claimed they already did so. On the
other hand, I met individuals who struggled with negative feelings towards
former combatants but still argued that coexistence was without alternatives.
In addition, while I noticed how former combatants had integrated successfully
into several locations, the label ‘ex-combatant’ still had a particularly
negative connotation. Intrigued by these ambiguities I explore in this article
the different aspects of coexistence in Sierra Leone more in detail. Based on
ethnographic data collected during eight months of fieldwork, the article
describes three practices of coexistence in rural and urban locations. The
focus on coexistence, unlike more normative terms like reconciliation and
reintegration commonly used in the literature about post-conflict contexts,
invites to reflect about these practices, rather than evaluate the different arrangements
of living together.

The most instructive moments in ethnographic
fieldwork are those when one faces contradictions: of literature and ‘field’, of
people’s words and actions, but most importantly of one’s own assumptions and
reality. This was the case during my fieldwork in Sierra Leone, ten years after
the civil war had ended. I struggled to understand people’s use of the word
‘ex-combatant’. Of those who were called ‘ex-combatants’ not all were actually
associated with armed groups, while at the same time many of those who fought
during the war lived normal lives, and were not regarded as ‘ex-combatant’. I
also wondered about the usefulness of terms such as reintegration or
reconciliation. Some former combatants had reintegrated or integrated into
communities successfully, yet others tried to make a living almost separate
from the rest of society. Both ways of living could lead to success ‑ and both ways
were paved with difficulties ‑ leaving reintegration as a blurry concept at
least. And finally, there were communities that lived in peaceful coexistence,
and yet villagers had personal, strongly negative feelings towards former
combatants, causing me to wonder just how much reconciliation is needed after
war: is such a mere ‘performance’ of coexistence not harmful for
individuals? Or, maybe, is ‘reconciliation’ simply asking too much of victims of
extreme violence?

In
this article I wish to share some of my observations in order to demonstrate
the complexity of coexistence in a post-war society. Rather than evaluating
which ‘strategies’ or ‘goals’ are best in facilitating coexistence after war, I
focus on how people have found ways to deal with the situation. To understand
how people live after war, I argue, one should keep an open mind about the ways
people rebuild social relationships. As I will show, certain practices and
conceptions of coexistence raise questions with regard to the common
understanding of the necessity of reintegration or reconciliation.

This
article is based on data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork for a larger
research project on dealing with the past after the civil war in Sierra Leone.
Over a total of eight months from 2010 to 2012, I have conducted research in
mainly three locations: Madina, a small village in the north of the country,
Tombodu, a larger village in the east of the country, and Freetown, Sierra
Leone’s capital. In all of these locations I interacted with a wide range of
individuals of all ages: farmers, miners, traders, owners of small businesses,
university students, pupils, as well as professionals in fields related to
dealing with the past. The majority of my informants can be described as
‘civilians’ and many were directly affected by the violence. I also spoke with
former combatants of all ages and all fighting factions. Introducing these
three locations, I will demonstrate how the perception of the relationship
between civilians and former combatants can differ significantly within a
country. At the same time, I will explore three different practices or ideas in
Sierra Leone that help people to live in and make sense of coexistence.

1.Civil war in Sierra Leone

The civil war in Sierra Leone lasted for about
11 years from 1991 to 2002[2].
In March 1991 a group of fighters entered the eastern part of Sierra Leone from
Liberia. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was a rebel movement claiming to
overthrow the government and liberate the people. Within months however it
became apparent that these rebels mainly attacked civilians and forcibly
recruited many into their ranks. The government, which after a coup in 1992 was
an interim government headed by a group of young military commanders, more or
less half-heartedly fought against this rebel movement. Many of the soldiers
were in fact recruited from the same background as rebels ‑ young men
with limited alternative opportunities ‑ and soon also soldiers were looting
villages and perpetrating atrocities, sometimes disguised as rebel attacks,
earning them the label sobels,
rebel-turned-soldier. Starting mostly in the south of the country, local hunter
organisations (widely referred to as kamajors)
were formed and took to defending their villages from both rebels and soldiers
(Keen, 2005).

In
1996, largely pushed for by civil society groups, democratic elections took
place and a peace agreement was signed between rebels and the government.
However, fighting resumed shortly after and in 1997, the government was forced
into exile by a joint soldier/rebel junta which was again ousted out of
Freetown a year later by West African peacekeeping forces. Although the kamajors had been formalised under the
defense ministry and were fighting together with the peacekeepers the tactics
they employed were sometimes indistinguishable from those of other fighting
factions. Once deployed outside their region of origin, they took to looting
and killing as well. A second peace accord in 1999 also failed to end the war
which was eventually stopped after United Nations peacekeepers and British
forces intervened in 2000-2002 (Abraham, 2001; Keen, 2005).

The
effects of the war were appalling. Approximately 30,000 to 75,000 people died
of war-related causes, although such estimates are impossible to confirm (Lord,
2000). In total, about half of the population was displaced during the war,
either internally or in the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Liberia. Some
257,000 women and girls have reportedly been raped (Ibrahim & Shepler,
2011). All armed groups took to forcibly recruiting combatants and other
helpers, including women and children ; it has been estimated that there
were more than 5,000 under-age combatants. About 600 amputees survived the war,
but arguably four times as many amputations took place during the war (Lord,
2000). Atrocities took place in all areas of the country, although it is
generally acknowledged that the south and east suffered most.

Nowadays
many Sierra Leoneans talk about the war as being senseless with regard to the
brutal forms of violence employed. The conflict lacked an overall ideology ‑ it was
neither religiously or ethnically motivated ‑ and fronts were often unclear. At
times neither of the armed groups were fighting each other but indiscriminately
attacked civilians (cf. King, 2007; Richards, 1996). The motivations of the
fighters were manifold ‑ some might have had revolutionary
ideas, others might have been interested in the gains one was able to make
belonging to an armed group or saw no other alternative than to join one of the
armed groups (Peters & Richards, 1998). At the same time, structural causes
and contributing factors such as widespread corruption, bad governance, and
importantly, youth unemployment are widely acknowledged.

2.Silent Integration

In the first of three research locations, a
small village in Bombali district of northern Sierra Leone, I wondered about
the ambiguous use of the word ‘ex-combatant’ and learned how young men could
avoid being labeled as such. Madina has no more than 200 inhabitants and is
situated about 15 km outside of Makeni, the capital of the Northern Province. In
Madina, villagers worked mostly on their farms, producing rice, potatoes, or
bright red chili in order to earn a livelihood. During the war the village was
attacked several times by either rebels or rogue government soldiers, forcing
people to temporarily leave their houses and stay in the surrounding forests or
with relatives in other parts of the country. Most of the villagers had thus
not seen the attackers. Many lost their property: houses were burnt down,
animals and household items stolen. Some experienced the loss of family members
or witnessed atrocities such as severe beatings in the village or during their
refuge in other locations.

What
was remarkable about this village was that people almost unanimously affirmed
that ex-combatants and civilians are now «the same» and strongly avowed that they
experienced no problems with each other. An older woman explained to me that «[t]hey
have already mixed with us», and to my question of how she
felt about this, she added: «it’s not a problem! […] They
have already stopped, they don’t touch us anymore» (December 2010). One young man,
asked why former combatants and civilians can now live together, simply
answered, «because the war is over». And others have described the
relationship even in enthusiastic ways:

I said we are living together now. Why I said we are living together,
before this time we didn’t have a mind to include the ex-combatants. In what we
are doing. But now when we see them somewhere, we will go there and talk with
them. […] All what causes this, is peace. Before this time we don’t have such a
mind. […] Some man will come to me and buy palm wine, we sit and pull parables
(tell stories), they will drink and we will laugh together, so this was what we
were praying for. (Man in his late 20s, December 2010)

Many
of the informants in Madina insisted that because former combatants were
engaged in the same activities, one could not see a difference: «Before
this time, you don’t have anywhere to sit [without] somebody scaring you, but
for now, any young man, […] those that have been causing the problems, […] they
and us, you don’t even know the difference» (December 2010), a young man told
me in an interview together with his best friend who was captured by an armed
group during the war.

Yet
what puzzled me about these statements is that at the same time many villagers
said no known ex-combatants permanently lived in the village. Different from
other locations in Sierra Leone, as I will describe below, villagers in Madina
were thus not confronted with former perpetrators. Later, however, I did
encounter individuals who were associated with former armed groups who lived
normal lives in the village, which puzzled me even more.

More
confusing still was the villagers reaction when we talked specifically about
ex-combatants in the cities, of whom
many in Madina spoke rather negatively, displaying prejudices towards
ex-combatants common in all parts of Sierra Leone. Generally, the word
‘ex-combatant’ in Sierra Leone is tied to a range of negative clichés, and many
in Sierra Leone have described them as «those young men» hanging
out in the cities or bigger towns, who are jobless, living in slums, taking
drugs, engaged in criminal activities. Since the first organisations of
motorbike taxi riding were run entirely by former combatants, motorbike taxi
riders are often suspected to be former combatants as well. Although by now
motorbike taxi riders are not necessarily ex-combatants, many of them are
considered to be dangerous and more often than not suspected to have fought during the war (Bürge, 2011 ; Menzel,
2011). In Madina, these same negative clichés were thus mentioned when I talked
with villagers about former combatants in the cities, and it was made clear to
me that such ex-combatants would not
be welcome in the village. Thus there seemed to be an important distinction
between former combatants who behaved or looked ‘rough’ and former combatants
who behaved ‘appropriately’ (cf. Menzel, 2011).

A
former combatant in Madina, for example, had settled in the village without
problems. He had moved to Madina to stay with his friend, and though some
villagers knew of his history, such as the mother of his friend, it seemed to
be irrelevant in everyday life in the village. How was it possible that people
would not ‘categorise’ this young man as an ex-combatant? I argue here that in
some situations it was possible for some young men (and women) to behave in
ways that mean they are not considered ex-combatants, regardless if it is known
that they were associated with any armed groups or not.

One
requirement for successful integration into a community in Sierra Leone is
indeed the display of correct behaviour. Integration of strangers, especially
young men, is an old practice in many Sierra Leonean regions, as young men were
always needed to perform often temporary manual labour in agriculture or
mining. Describing the integration of former combatants in nothern Sierra
Leone, Rosalind Shaw shows how these older practices were employed. There,
integration was most successful if the present behaviour and attitude of
ex-combatants was appropriate. Current behaviour thus proved significantly more
important to the success of integration than the knowledge of what the given
person did during the war. In fact, if the behaviour of ex-combatants was
‘humble’ enough no further questions would be asked (Shaw, 2010a). The young
man in Madina who had been captured by one of the armed groups seemed to agree
that this was the best way for society to function: «If the government says you should do
[this] and then […] you don’t do it, then you don’t want to be under control.
And if somebody says he doesn’t want to obey the government, it will be a
problem for [all]» (December 2010). According to Shaw, such a subsumed agency «is crucial
for processes of social integration and coexistence» (Shawn, 2010a, 125).

That
said, a range of scholars have raised important caveats with regard to this
integration practice. Importantly, it has been argued that this form of
integration actually reinforce the very power relations that led to
frustrations among particularly young men before the war as young men are
forced into a low status in the community (Peters, 2007 ; Shaw, 2010a ;
Stovel, 2008). This may have been one of the reasons why many former combatants
did not choose to return to their communities of origin or other rural
communities, as I will discuss below.

So
far, I have discussed one practice of coexistence, namely, how former
combatants can integrate ‘silently’ in a given community. Interestingly, the
practice somehow blurs the category of ‘ex-combatants’ as those who behave
appropriately are not referred to as ex-combatants anymore. They have become
‘invisible’ ex-combatants, while the word ‘ex-combatant’ is reserved for ‘visible’
ex-combatants and still connotated negatively. Yet, while such processes of
‘silent’ integration are likely to have happened in many locations of Sierra
Leone, people did not always speak so positively about coexistence as they did
in Madina.

3.Forgive
and forget?

A second location where I spent a considerable
amount of time was Tombodu, a larger village with about 3000 inhabitants in the
east of Sierra Leone. In Tombodu I learned how villagers found ways to live in
coexistence with each other, even though this was no easy task. The phrase ‘forgive
and forget’ was central to this rather pragmatic practice of coexistence.

Tombodu’s
location in a diamond-rich area of the country made it a critical location for
all armed groups during the war, as all fighting factions had at some point or
another attempted to mine diamonds for their own profit. Unlike in Madina,
where villagers experienced heavy but sporadic attacks, Tombodu was under the
control of armed groups for a prolonged time, about three years. Most of the
villagers fled to Guinea during the war ; some however were not able to
flee and thus became subjects or witness of indescribable forms of atrocities.
There were several mass graves uncovered after the war, with the most prominent
one right in the center of the village. Only a fraction of the inhabitants of
Tombodu returned after the war and earn their livelihoods mainly as farmers.
Many men are also employed at the diamond digging fields in the area.

In
Tombodu, coexistence was perceived as tense. Many of the non-combatant
villagers expressed that they did not feel good when they saw former
combatants, some of whom were responsible for crimes committed in Tombodu
itself. Despite this, however, the villagers unanimously avowed that they lived
together peacefully, since there was no other alternative. In this context, the
phrase ‘forgive and forget’ played a large role. The expression became popular
after the war when it was initially coined by the government in 1999 and
subsequently spread throughout the country. ‘Forgive and forget’ was preached
in churches, mosques and community meetings, and disseminated by local NGOs and
I encountered this phrase in all areas in Sierra Leone (cf. Shaw, 2010b).

While
in Madina, people often referred to ‘forgive and forget‘ seemingly without
giving it a second thought, in Tombodu many examined the expression. Many said
that you can forgive but never forget, others that you can forget but never
forgive. This man, for example, points at the importance of forgiving in
creating peace after the war:

But some people are saying we will forgive but not forget. Civilians,
rebels, soldiers, all of you come together, the civilians have to bear it, the
civilians are the ones who have to bear it, who suffer most, so they have to
bear. The rebels where the ones holding the guns, if we say we don’t forgive
them, we would not have gripped them and the war would not have been over. But
we took on the pain, we wanted peace. […] The civilians agreed to let the war
finish. (Man in his 40s, Tombodu, February 2011)

This
man illustrated how ‘forgive and forget’ is far from easy and that civilians
are the ones who suffer most in the situation. Yet he also described their
motivation: as civilians they wanted peace, so they accepted the price they had
to pay for it.

It
was interesting that even those informants who expressed personal difficulties
with the phrase ‘forgive and forget’ asserted that it was crucial for peace to
hold. ‘forgive and forget’ may thus be better understood as a ‘performance’ or
an expression for one’s willingness to live in coexistence rather than an
articulation of real emotions. Anthropologist Michael Jackson’s works are
particularly insightful here: Describing that such attitudes «are
performative in character, rather than mirror the way a person ‘actually’
thinks or feels» (2005, 369 ; 2004, 68), Jackson explains how people choose
certain strategies to make social life possible rather than put forward one’s
individual demands. Elswhere Jackson described how social life among the
Kuranko in northern Sierra Leone is generally conceived in more practical ‑ and
pragmatic ‑ ways: «Kuranko people are far less
exercised by the conceptual question, What is in my neighbor’s mind? Than by
practicing social wisdom […] and cultivating copresence ‑ ‘greeting,’
‘sitting together,’ ‘working together,’ and ‘moving as one’» (Jackson,
1998, 12). This hints at an understanding of coexistence as a feature, or even
a necessity, of everyday life rather than a choice motivated by inner feelings.

Contrary
to its literal meaning thus, if ‘forgive and forget’ was primarily used as a
performative expression it therefore did not necessarily negate that villagers
still bore personal feelings of hurt and anger. Rather, many in Tombodu learned
to live with the current situation, even if such practices of acceptance can be
understood as unfair to the victims of atrocities (Stovel, 2008). The case of
this woman demonstrates the contradicting feelings involved:

— Woman :
When I see these people I can say that they are my enemies. They are my enemies !
You are staying with somebody and they took a knife saying that I am coming to
kill you, then you run away. When you come back you see that person, you can
still remember that person, the time he took that knife to kill you. So you
will always see that person to be your enemy because you see that moment when
he was trying to kill you. So they are my enemies.

— FM :
Now if you see such a person, nothing will happen, will you do anything with
that person ?

—
[People sitting around, grumbling :] What will you do ! ‑ Unless
you forgive the person. ‑ You won’t kill the person, you won’t beat him,
unless you forget about him.

— Woman :
[…] unless you forget about it and sit down. You will sit down together with
them but you will never forget the things they have done. You cannot trust them
anymore. (Woman in her 60s, Tombodu, January 2011)

The
dilemma of the woman becomes clear as she describes how difficult it is to ‘forget’
when one cannot actually forget: by saying that «you forget about it and sit down
with them» she refers to the practice of coexistence which allows civilians and
former combatants to live a normal life. When she says «but you
will never forget» she refers to her actual memories or feelings. «It is not
easy» was perhaps the phrase I heard most often during such conversations.

To
recapitulate, I have described how the phrase ‘forgive and forget’ remains a
debated expression but generally represents people’s willingness to live in
coexistence peacefully. As such, it does not indicate people’s real feelings. While
in places such as Madina ‘forgive and forget’ was spoken about rather
ingenuously, in Tombodu, where villagers suffered significantly more than
elsewhere, sentiments were very mixed.

4.Urban
opportunities

My third research location was Freetown, the
capital of Sierra Leone, where I once again stumbled across the ambiguity of
the category ‘ex-combatant’ but where young individuals, including former
combatants, can also find ways to start a new life ‑ perhaps an attraction of large
cities in general.

Freetown
has the typical fuzziness and chaos of a big city ; the city’s population
has been estimated to have risen to more than a million after the war (the
total population of Sierra Leone is about 6 million) (International Crisis
Group 2008, 23). In Freetown I heard no shared tales of the war, and individual
life stories did not resemble each other as they often did in the rural
locations. In addition, people who were in Freetown during the war had
experienced different forms of violence than those in the provinces. During the
military intervention in January 1999 some areas of the capital were under
heavy bombardment and individuals also remembered peacekeepers as perpetrators
because they had bombed rebel-‘infested’ areas indiscriminately.

During
my research in Freetown more than ten years after these events the relationship
between civilians and former combatants was almost not an issue in the majority
of my conversations. Informants simply stated that it did not concern them as
former combatants were living in the ‘bad areas’ of the city. «Freetown
now is big, […] you can stay in the east and the other person in the west», said
one man in the neighbourhood where I stayed, and simiarly other informants made
statements such as «they are there. So what?» Unlike in places like Tombodu,
where former combatants ‑ and often the very perpetrators of
atrocities committed ‑ stayed in the same community with civilians,
in Freetown, civilians and former combatants appeared to live separately.

Indeed,
a large number of former combatants have remained in the urban centres of
Sierra Leone and many of those unable to find secure employment can be found in
the less affluent neighbourhoods of the city ‑ in Freetown these are mostly the
eastern areas of the city. Some former combatants preferred to stay with the
members of their armed groups in the cities instead of returning to their
communities of origin, and have formed support networks for themselves. Other
ex-combatants remained in the cities for another reason: having committed
crimes in their communities of origin they felt ashamed to return or were
openly discouraged from returning by their relatives or other community
members. Some of these networks of former combatants have been linked to
incidents of political violence or criminal activities, contributing to an
image of the ‘dangerous ex-combatant’ (Christensen & Utas, 2008; Menzel,
2011).

Yet
despite many of my informants’ statements that ex-combatants lived in the ‘bad
areas’ of the city, many former combatants had also integrated into ‘normal’
neighbourhoods of the town. I had witnessed this in the neighbourhood that I
stayed in. During a talk with a neighbour on his veranda he greeted a young man
who passed by. I was surprised to learn that, of all places, several of the
kamajors who were deployed to ‘secure’ this area during the war had opted to
remain permanently in this neighbourhood once the war was over. «Yes!» the
neighbour answered, «you know now, we have forgotten about this war so they are just here, we
greet, you see he greeted me, I didn’t even see him» (March 2012). The young man was
part of a group of kamajors who were assigned to the area and who mistreated
some residents in brutal ways. Yet, this knowledge had faded away due to the
high mobility in the neighbourhood. The neighbour was one of the few persons
who knew about the young men’s role during the war. Thus the anonymity of the
city might have helped former combatants to integrate, as well as a general
display of appropriate behaviour expected from all community members, such as
politely greeting their neighbours.

Thus,
as mentioned above, the category ‘ex-combatant’ was used in ambiguous ways.
Many of my informants were sceptical towards former combatants, whereas in fact
they seemed to refer to the ‘bad areas’ in the city more generally. Like in
Madina, people thus made a difference between ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ ex-combatants:
those who fit an already negative cliché were called ex-combatant, where the
personal histories of men who lived normal lives had become irrelevant.

Finally,
urban spaces have also opened up new opportunities for young people, including
former combatants. The establishment of motorbike taxi riding in all bigger
cities in Sierra Leone after the war illustrates how young men, including
former combatants, can create new avenues for making a living. Initially
established by a group of ex-combatants in the southern city of Bo, the
business of providing taxi services on motor bikes quickly spread. Today,
motorbike taxi riding is a popular profession for young men throughout the
country (Bürge, 2011 ; Fithen & Richards, 2005 ; Peters, 2007).

Such
new forms of finding employment in their own networks show that reintegration
is not the only option for former combatants. Peters (2007) points out that
reintegration also falsely suggests that something has to go back to the way it
was, which ignores changes that might have happened in society during or after
the time of the war. The case of motorbike taxi riding, for example, could be
better described as a process of ‘aligning’ instead of ‘reintegrating’ (Peters
2007, 6). That said, however, young men who engage in motorbike taxi riding do
confront negative prejudices which they find difficult to counter (Menzel,
2011). On a more general level, the possibilities for all young persons in
Sierra Leone to earn a decent livelihood remain extremely scarce.

Thus
Freetown presented yet another scenario with regard to coexistence. As in
Madina, I soon realised that the category ‘ex-combatant’ was rather blurry and
that even though many civilians avowed that they had no contact with
‘ex-combatants’, former combatants had nevertheless integrated into society. On
the other hand former combatants (and young persons in general) have remained
in or migrated to urban centres in Sierra Leone because of the greater
possibilities to earn a living there, even if chances to find a secure job
remain low. The success of motorbike taxi riding in Sierra Leone is a great
example of how young men have created employement for themselves in a postwar
society.

Conclusion

In this article, I have explored three aspects
of coexistence in Sierra Leone. First, I have discussed how it is possible for
former combatants to (re)integrate into a community based on good behaviour.
Second, I described the idea of ‘forgive and forget’ which is an expression of
people’s willingness to live in coexistence after the war. Third, I looked at
coexistence in a much more anonymous, urban space. The different situations in
the various research locations further demonstrate that coexistence can be
perceived in significantly different ways within one country. Coexistence in
Sierra Leone may mean that, as in Tombodu, people merely accept each other but
for the sake of peace will try to avoid conflicts. In Madina on the other hand
I could almost sense a convivial atmosphere, as people emphasised that they had
‘forgotten’ about the war and some former combatants were able to live in the
village without any problems. In Freetown, though many of my informants stated
that they lived separate from ‘ex-combatants’, former combatants were able to
live normal lives in many areas of the city, far from being labelled in such a
way ‑ not least because there seemed to be no relevance to reveal their past
in everyday life.

Recapitulating
these observations, the situation in Sierra Leone has proven to be complex with
regard to a number of issues. First, the ambiguous use of the word
‘ex-combatant’ makes this category a rather blurry concept, which was more
often than not indicative of a person’s social status instead of her or his
actual past. Second, and related to this, the question of reintegration becomes
equally blurry. If former combatants are using their own networks in order to
make a living in non-violent ways, they may still not be ‘integrated’ into
society but also do not hinder peaceful coexistence. Third, the idea of
reconciliation has played a rather marginal role during my research. While ‘forgive
and forget’ is popularly used in Sierra Leone to express the only alternative
after war, namely coexistence, few Sierra Leoneans that I met actually spoke of
a desire to reconcile with former combatants. This ultimately led me to
question the necessity of reconciliation after civil war in this particular
context.

On a
final note, such observations raise some important questions concerning
official reconciliation or reintegration programmes. Notably, a range of
official practices of dealing with the past of the civil war had been
implemented in Sierra Leone long before I conducted this research, such as the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission or the Special Court for Sierra Leone. During
my fieldwork however the work of such institutions was not regarded as helpful
in reestablishing social relations after the war (cf. Shaw, 2005). Programmes
such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, geared to reconcile community
members, may even run counter to everyday processes of coexistence as by design
they often categorise people into ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’. With regard to
the reintegration of former combatants however, this may be counterintuitive to
the informal processes where the ambiguity of such categories such as
‘ex-combatant’ leaves the possibility of a renegotiation of social roles.

Shaw, R. (2010b). “The Production of “Forgiveness”: God, Justice, and State Failure in
Post-War Sierra Leone”, in Clarke,
K.M., Goodale, M. (Eds) Mirrors of Justice: Law and Power in the Post-Cold War Era, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.208–26.

[1] I want to express my deep gratitude
to all Sierra Leoneans who shared their views with me. I want to thank Ishiatu
A. Koroma and Doris B. Lebbie for their assistance and advice in Sierra Leone,
and Jonah Lipton, Anne Menzel, Edward Mando, and the participants of the
workshop Anthropologie historique des
pratiques de violence de masse in Paris, November 2011, for their valuable
comments. Finally, I want to thank the editors for their comments and patience.

[2] The war is well documented. See,
for example, Abdullah (2004), Coulter (2009), Gberie (2005), Keen (2005), and
Richards (1996).